3D Radar Imaging

The purpose of this Phase I effort is to introduce a new 3D imaging algorithm, to explore the range of circumstances within BMD where the technique can be successfully employed, and to investigate associated data processing requirements. MDA seeks a technique for exploiting its radar assets to create high resolution three-dimensional Inverse Synthetic Aperture (3D ISAR) images of objects in a ballistic missile threat complex, providing substantially more information than is currently available, to allow better discrimination of the threatening reentry vehicle (RV) from non-threatening objects. TSC's new technology provides a physics-based method for producing three-dimensional ISAR images from radar measurements of a target at multiple azimuths and elevations. TSC will demonstrate an innovative coherent approach in which scatterers fixed to the skin of a rigid body are imaged without the conventional requirement that they move in straight lines or with constant phase history with respect to the radar. Instead, the phase trajectories are modeled precisely using solutions of Euler's torque-free equations of motion. Potential advantages of the novel approach include reduced radar resource requirements compared to conventional snapshot ISAR imaging, discrimination of tumbling RVs, discrimination of the RV in stressing viewing geometries, and opportunities for multi-sensor data level fusion.